When it comes to business and enterprise technologies, cloud-based services like Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) implementations are accelerating. According to a recent study, 96% of organizations reported using cloud services in some form or fashion.
Traditional contact centers are no exception. CCaaS solutions are being deployed at a rapid pace to meet ever-increasing customer expectations, business agility requirements, and to keep competitors at bay. Regardless of industry or company size, CCaaS technologies make it possible for contact center managers and agents to do more with less.
Migrating from legacy on-premise contact center solutions to a cloud contact center provides greater flexibility, increased scalability and efficiencies. The benefits of CCaaS translate directly into greater performance metrics (KPIs) and cost-savings across the board.
According to Forrester, moving to a cloud-based CCaaS solution helped organizations achieve the following results:
- 10% reduction in average handling time (AHT)
- First-call resolution (FCR) increased from 40% to 70%
- Customer satisfaction scores rose from 59% to 85%
Despite case studies showing positive results, many organizations remain reluctant to migrate their existing contact center systems to the cloud. In fact, many are hesitant to make the change due to perceived technology challenges relating to migration, implementation, and training. Yet, others worry about costs and IT budget constraints.
For those on the fence about implementing CCaaS, here are three compelling reasons to transition from your legacy, on-premise phone system to a cloud contact center solution. Before we get started, here’s a hint – seamless omnichannel experiences, enhanced security posture, and performance measurements to optimize workforces.
Seamless Omni-Channel Experiences
Customers calling into a contact center expect agents to be perceptive and understand their needs with little explanation. They expect an omnichannel journey that is proactive and not reactive. How can cloud contact center solutions help? Simply put, it increases the level of consistency across channels. Organizations migrating to cloud contact center solutions have reported an increase in positive customer experience outcomes.
A recent study showed that organizations using a CCaaS solution reported 18% higher CSAT and 36% greater likelihood that a customer would recommend the organization based on service experience, compared to organizations with traditional, on-premises contact center technologies.
Why? Cloud contact centers include a fully integrated suite of capabilities that can provide a full picture of the customer journey. Customers now expect this, and it is unacceptable for agents to restate information, get disconnected, or not having options for interactions. As consumers, we’ve all experienced a bad contact center experience, right? Endless phone trees, transfers, escalations, and wait times!
That’s not all… Integrated functionalities found in CCaaS solutions also provide organizations with a seamless view into workforce optimization (WFO) and analytics. This includes views into agent workloads and discussion analytics in real-time. And like other cloud services, CCaaS allows contact centers to scale during peak hours to meet increases and decreases in agent counts.
It’s not just the organization that benefits. Agents also benefit from the implementation of CCaaS. These technologies provide the agent with enhanced connections into CRM and other enterprise solutions allowing the agent to gain a comprehensive view of customer information and interactions with the organization. This data and enhanced view provides contextual, timely, and relevant information that can aid in exceeding customer expectations. Furthermore, cloud contact center solutions can be customized to the organization and customer journey allowing for efficiency and performance gains.
Enhanced Security
When it comes to cloud services, there are misconceptions and disinformation about the security of the cloud. Cloud-based services like CCaaS continue to mature and have become battle-tested over the years. The cloud is no longer a new technology. The early adopter phase is over! Most cloud solutions offer security standards that match or even surpass on-premise contact center systems. A recent study by McAfee found that 69% of organizations now expect their data is protected in the cloud.
In addition, CCaaS solutions excel into major areas of cybersecurity – information resiliency and privacy. Information resiliency includes the avoidance of data loss and corruption. With CCaaS, data is stored in the cloud, and the durability and availability of that data is extremely hard to match with an in-house, on-premise solution. Further, CCaaS provides data safeguards such as detailed activity logs.
When it comes to sensitive customer data, privacy is always a concern. CCaaS offers superior data privacy by imposing controls over which actions users of the platform can access. This ensures that customer data is available only to those for whom it is relevant.
Knowing that security is a major sticking point, nearly all top CCaaS providers have invested large amounts of capital into securing their platforms, setting up security best-practices and processes for their customers to follow. This makes the case for deploying a CCaaS solution all the more attractive for the security-conscious organization.
Performance Measurements & Workforce Optimization
To ensure successful workforce management (WFM), contact center managers must ensure that the right agents are in the right place, at the right time. In order to do this, orchestration must take place between human behavior and operational metrics, aka data analytics.
The majority of best-in-class cloud contact center solutions contain some form of workforce optimization. This includes WFO features such as interaction recording, live monitoring, quality management and coaching, analytics, and workforce management. CCaaS allows for the seamless integration of automated contact distributor (ACD) and interactive voice response (IVR), to enhance the availability and routing into the best available agents.
It’s clear that CCaaS is all about WFO. Something that’s immensely important to today’s organization. It takes aim at directly at improving metrics such as average handling time and first-call resolution. Cloud contact center solutions can pull data from different systems and develop custom dashboards that update automatically. These dashboards can be set up for individual agents, workgroups or executives. With all data in a single location, contact center managers have real-time insight to identify inconsistencies in performance and adjust accordingly.
Thinking About Migrating to CCaaS?
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. We’ve covered how best-in-class CCaaS solutions deliver seamless omnichannel experiences, enhanced security, and performance measurements for workforce optimization. However, we’ve also learned that many organizations put off a CCaaS migration until it is absolutely necessary. Much of this uncertainty stems from a fear of the unknown and a why fix it if it isn’t broken mentality.
Need help with your CCaaS implementation? I will help you explore different CCaaS options available to you without any obligation or commitment. As an independent and unbiased IT consultant, I will provide you with access to the top CCaaS providers as well as help with scheduling demos, evaluating solutions, negotiating pricing and contracts – all at no cost to you.
Interested in learning more about CCaaS or while platforms and providers are best? Make sure to contact us by emailing me today!